Where Are All the NJ Word Nerds Hanging Out?

September 28, 2012 by 2 Comments

Montclair Book Center

Maybe 15 years ago, back when the Montclair Book Center was still the Page One Café, I barely stepped into my local Barnes & Noble. Why would I? Instead, I spent hours browsing the books — old and new — on the left side of Page One. On the right side, there was a café. Live jazz. A healthy selection of periodicals, records, old movie posters, and other miscellany. It was all I wanted and needed, all in one place.

Today, the café is gone. The periodicals and other miscellany, too. It’s still a bookshop worth losing yourself in. But it’s not the same. It’s not the type of place where I can sit down with a good book, find the latest lit mags, and enjoy a meal and some music. That makes me sadface.

What’s even sadder is that I’ve been unable to find another shop that can step in and take its place. In Boston, I had the Trident Booksellers & Café. When I was working in NYC, I frequently showed up early for events at Housing Works, McNally Jackson, and the Strand, wandering the aisles before settling down for a variety show or a panel or a reading. Have I just been spoiled? Is there a reason I can’t find a single NJ bookstore that’s recreating that experience… that’s popped up as a literary hotbed for NJ writers? Where’s the NJ version of Book Boroughing!? Where’s the NJ literary community!? [Read more…]

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Join My Quasi-Secret Word Nerd Facebook Group Maybe?

August 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Hey guys. This totally doesn’t count as this week’s actual blog post, but I just wanted to let y’all know that I’ve created a quasi-secret Facebook group for word nerds.

Basically, it’s an invite-only Facebook group I’m using as a testing ground for features that will eventually appear on the still-being-developed Word Nerd Networking site.

I’m also hoping it will become a fun, virtual hangout for all my fellow word nerds, where we can chat about what we’re working on, share project leads, show off our home offices, post about freelance resources, and more.

I’d love to invite all of you — as you’re the most fantastic writers I know — but I can only invite people with whom I’m already Facebook friends. So if you’re interested in joining the party, connect with me here, and then shoot me a message that mentions you’re itching to get into the Word Nerd Networking Facebook group. Include a link to your online profile, so I can confirm you’re a working writer. I’ve previously kept my word nerdy life separate from my Facebook life, but THE WALLS MUST COME DOWN.

Once you’ve gained entrance to the group, you can feel free to post about any ol’ word nerdy thing you can think of, or even upload photos of your home office and/or other word nerdy product. (You’ll see I already have a pic up there of me with my “reading is sexy” mug.)

And… that’s that! You may carry on with your tweeting and your Spider Solitaire-ing now. 🙂

Related: How I Learned to Live and Write with Intention

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How I Learned to Live and Write with Intention

June 6, 2012 by 3 Comments

In November 2010, I hosted a speed networking event at the Galway Hooker in NYC, a bar just a few blocks south of where I used to work full-time for an academic book publisher.*

The event was a shot-in-the-dark idea I had for promoting my brand new career coaching business… one idea among many.

I paired up with Marian Schembari to plan and co-host the event. Together, we filled the space with publishing professionals we’d connected with over the course of our careers.

We filled that room with 25 publishing experts, and then — through a promotional push borne of the fear that no one would show up — we managed to fill the room with 50 more people eager to speed network with them.

The event was a resounding success, and I often thought of hosting more of them.

I never did. [Read more…]

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Community: The Crucial Ingredient To Freelance Writing Success

February 10, 2012 by 3 Comments

I like working alone. I prefer fuzzy slippers to pantyhose. And my commute these days is fantastic. But these aren’t the only reasons I chose freelancedom.

I’m an introvert, and having to be “on” for long periods of time leaves me exhausted. I also have social anxiety, and have had panic attacks while out in public. Working from home — quiet, calm, and with my three cats for company — makes me feel safe. I love that being a writer makes this possible.

But I credit my success — my ability to sustain this lifestyle — with the community I’ve built up around me. Through Twitter. Through Brazen Careerist and the Young Entrepreneur Council. Through past projects and jobs. Through this blog. So I was thrilled to get the chance to hang out in Carol Tice’s Freelance Writers Den, a virtual community for freelance writers, as a guest on her weekly podcast. [Read more…]

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Link Love: January 10, 2010

January 10, 2010 by 5 Comments

This past weekend, I did something truly revolutionary: I didn’t do a damn bit of work. Instead, I spent a day cleaning the condo. I threw a party. I caught up with people I hadn’t seen in eons, due to my all-encompassing absorption with my work. I took down the Christmas decorations. I even enjoyed a leisurely lunch out with my husband. Tonight? My husband and I are meeting up with a group of friends to see Avatar at the IMAX theater. Work? What work? I’ve been completely unproductive. But it’s nice to feel a part of the world again.

Before I head out to the theater, here’s your weekly link love:

[Read more…]

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Finding Someone To Drag You to the Finish Line

April 22, 2009 by 7 Comments

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[Photo via]

This past weekend, I traveled to Boston to see my father-in-law run in the marathon. It was my first marathon ever, and I wasn’t quite sure what it would be like watching a group of people run by.

My husband, my mother-in-law, and I set up shop about 100 yards from the finish line, right outside the Prudential Center and a block or two away from the library. We were lucky enough to get a spot right at the barrier, where I stood poised with my camera, waiting for our runner.

Next to us was a woman with…um…a loud mouth. I wasn’t sure if she was there to see anyone in particular, but she cheered on just about every runner who went past us, referring to the names on the fronts of their shirts.

“Yeah Jan! Whooo! Almost there! Yeah Pam and Steve! Whooo! Doing great!” Nonstop. It was a wonder she still had a voice.

Some of the people around us gave her dirty looks, but I just loved the way she broke through to those runners on the last leg of their journey, giving them the strength to make it those last 100 yards.  I was alost overcome by emotion every time one of them broke out of their running reverie and smiled, or gave her a thumbs up. It seemed to me that she was doing those marathoners a great service.

Sometimes, my work day feels like a marathon — one filled with endless blog posts, pitches, interviews, rewrites, edits, and the like — and I wish I had someone to drag me those last few yards to the end. This is where my own personal freelance support group comes in handy.

[Read more…]

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Build Your Own: Writing Group

March 3, 2009 by 8 Comments

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I’ve been missing my old writing group.

We met several years ago, in Cris Beam’s From Pitch to Publish Class at New School. For at least a year, the four of us workshopped each others’ pieces, shared contacts, suggested paying markets, and basically gave each other the kicks in the ass we needed.

Eventually, life got busy. One of us moved to Brooklyn. One of us moved abroad. One of us had a baby. And I kept getting promoted at work, a development that forced me to travel more often on business.

I’d love to start a new group. But how? And who?

[Read more…]

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Following Multiple Paths

January 27, 2009 by 1 Comment

fork-in-the-road

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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth.

– Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”

…

Earlier today, I posted on my personal blog about the fear of missing out on alternate lives due to the decisions I make.

I waxed eloquent (I hope) on how worried I am that, because of ways in which I’ve settled in and settled down, there are no more surprises around the bend.

Funny that the same neuroticism doesn’t plague the way I approach my career.

At least not anymore.

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PSA: Freelancedom Forums

January 26, 2009 by 1 Comment

Worrying about being all talk and no action, I decided to finally get off my butt this weekend and set up forums for Freelancedom.

I had initially intended to integrate forum software with WordPress, but was having trouble on that end. I mean, I’m not the most web-savvy individual out there. So I finally admitted defeat and set up a forum hosted through Activeboard.

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Coffee Break: Building Community

January 2, 2009 by 5 Comments

In My So-Called Freelance Life, Michelle Goodman wrote that a good way of controlling your overwork tendencies is to “have somewhere to be ‘after work.'” It was this suggestion that made me think about starting up a regular happy hour for freelancers in my nabe.

Being a bit clueless about who actually lives near me, however (and by “near me,” I mean NJ rather than NY), I began to consider another means of connecting with my fellow freelancers: community bulletin boards.

[Read more…]

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